American inmate killed after shooting guards in Israeli prison

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Samuel Sheinbein appears in a Tel Aviv court in 1999.

Story highlights

Convicted murderer Samuel Sheinbein is killed in a prison shooting

Guards and special forces shot him after he shot three guards

Two guards were seriously injured; a third one has minor injuries

Sheinbein fled to Israel after the 1997 killing of a Maryland teen

A prison inmate who murdered a Maryland teen was killed Sunday after he shot three guards inside an Israeli prison, officials said.

Samuel Sheinbein, who fled the United States for Israel after the 1997 killing, was shot Sunday evening by police special forces and guards at Rimonim Prison, Israel Prison Service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said.

Sheinbein, 34, shot at the guards from inside the prison's restrooms, Weizman said. Two of them were seriously wounded, and the third sustained minor injuries, she said.

It was unclear how he got the weapon.

Sheinbein, a citizen of Israel and the United States, pleaded guilty to murder in 1999 in the gruesome killing of Alfredo Tello Jr.

Prosecutors accused Sheinbein and accomplice Aaron Needle of picking up Tello from work in Silver Spring, Maryland, and deciding to kill him.

They strangled him with a rope, struck him on the head with a blunt object and slashed him. Two days later, prosecutors said, they dismembered the victim and burned his body.

After fleeing to Israel, Sheinbein admitted to the dismemberment and burning of the victim. He said Needle, who was arrested in the murder but hanged himself in jail, was the killer.

The Israeli Supreme Court had ruled that Sheinbein could not be extradited to the United States.